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Cruelty may be a self-control device against sympathy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2006

George Ainslie
George Ainslie*
Affiliation:
Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Coatesville, PA19320http://www.picoeconomics.com
*
george.ainslie@va.gov
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Abstract:

Dispassionate cruelty and the euphoria of hunting or battle should be distinguished from the emotional savoring of victims' suffering. Such savoring, best called negative empathy, is what puzzles motivational theory. Hyperbolic discounting theory suggests that sympathy with people who have unwanted but seductive traits creates a threat to self-control. Cruelty to those people may often be the least effortful way of countering this threat.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , June 2006 , pp. 224 - 225
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2006

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References

Notes

The commentator is employed by a government agency and, as such, this commentary is considered a work of the U.S. government and not subject to copyright within the United States.

1. This was not just Euripides’ imagination. I professionally encountered the case of a man who, when his wife served him with divorce papers, killed their children and himself, “to give her something to think about.”